Winter Thane was raised on the two cardinal rules of werewolf existence: don’t reveal yourself to humans under penalty of death, and there’s no such thing as a gay werewolf. It’s no surprise when his father drags him from his wild life in remote Canada back to Connecticut to meet his old pack in hopes it will persuade Winter to abandon his love of sex with human males. Of course Dad’s hopes are dashed when they come face-to-face with the gay werewolves in the Harker pack.

Winter takes one look at FBI agent, Matt Partridge, and decides bird is his favorite food. Partridge is embroiled in an investigation into drug dealing and the death of a fellow agent. He can’t let himself get distracted by the young, platinum-haired beast, but then Winter proves invaluable in the search for clues, a move that winds them both up in chains and facing imminent death. Winter quickly learns his father’s motives are questionable, the pack alphas are a bunch of pussies, humans aren’t quite what they seem, and nothing in the forests of Connecticut is pure except love.

Walk slowly. Look casual. Matt left the way he’d come—out the back door. When his feet hit dirt, he jogged away from the club and ducked behind the shed that had been built on the edge of the forest.

Going to die. Heart can’t beat this hard and survive.

He leaned against the shed and gasped for breath, but his cock had grown to the size of a monster, stealing all his oxygen. Think. What the fuck are you doing? No reasonable human being could believe that Winter Thane wanted Matt Partridge, so there had to be an ulterior motive. The dude had asked the marshal about him. For all Matt knew, Winter could be involved in the disappearance of the agent. Maybe he wanted to discredit Matt or—maybe he had something to do with the weird wolf stories. Jesus, the only man he’d ever seen who looked more like a wolf than Cole Harker had to be Winter Thane. Those eyes. Even his teeth were sharp. All the better to eat you with. He closed his eyes and banged his head against the metal siding. Those teeth scraping his cock—

“Dreaming of me?”

Matt’s eyes flew open. “Shit! How did you get here?”

He looked over his shoulder. “Like you said. Out the front, around the side.”

“But I didn’t hear you.”

He grinned. Oh yes, those teeth glistened. “I’m sneaky.”

Matt took a breath, pushed away from the shed, and walked a couple of steps toward the trees. Need distance. “Look. I don’t mean to lead you on, but I’m with the FBI and this isn’t a good idea—”

The hand that gripped his shoulder must have been iron. In one move, Winter grabbed him, pulled him against a body so hard and hot it penetrated Matt’s jacket on contact, hauled Matt’s head back, and covered his mouth in a devouring kiss.

Tongue. Teeth. Perfection.

Winter held Matt’s head both hard and gentle, like he wanted to control him but didn’t want to hurt him. Oh God, so nice. He tasted like beer and smelled like—what? Musky and clean at the same time, like Matt’s dog Buster when he was freshly washed. Man, he wanted to bury his nose in Winter’s neck like he did with Buster.

Winter reduced the speed and intensity of the kiss from fast food to a gourmet meal. He licked and nibbled, tasted and savored, his tongue a finely tuned instrument exploring every cranny of Matt’s mouth. He’d never been so completely kissed. So much so that even the screaming pressure of his cock couldn’t make him want Winter to move on. Matt twined his arms around Winter’s neck. Standing only six feet, he couldn’t get his cock to meet Winter’s, but the prod of that big rod against his belly made him want to beg. He pulled his mouth away an inch. “I should arrest you for carrying a lethal weapon.”

Tales of the Harker Pack Series

About the Author

Tara Lain writes the Beautiful Boys of Romance in LGBT erotic romance novels that star her unique, charismatic heroes. Her first novel was published in January of 2011 and she’s now somewhere around book 23. Her best­selling novels have garnered awards for Best Series, Best Contemporary Romance, Best Ménage, Best LGBT Romance, Best Gay Characters, and Tara has been named Best Writer of the Year in the LRC Awards. In her other job, Tara owns an advertising and public relations firm. She often does workshops on both author promotion and writing craft.

She lives with her soul­mate husband and her soul­mate dog in Laguna Beach, California, a pretty seaside town where she sets a lot of her books. Passionate about diversity, justice, and new experiences, Tara says on her tombstone it will say “Yes”!

Friday, February 20, 2015

On the reality show Dance Off, pro rugby player Olivier Gautier and Olympic swimmer JC Webster each have one goal in mind: to stay on the show as long as possible to earn his charity of choice maximum exposure and a larger donation. As the competition heats up, their goals expand to catching each other's interest, but Olivier is firmly in the closet and plans to stay there. JC is willing to be discreet, but not to hide forever.

Starting a romance with another man is challenge enough for any celebrity, but doing it under the microscope of reality TV—and one majorly intolerant costar—is even harder. Add in meddling dance pros, JC’s overbearing family, and the need to play up chemistry with dance partners to win America’s hearts, and JC and Olivier’s time together is looking more and more like a recipe for disaster.

As the pressure to stay in the competition mounts, JC and Olivier must face their inevitable separation at the end of the show as well as decide whether a relationship as complicated as theirs can survive in the real world, outside the bubble of the set and practice studios.

Olivier Gautier looked around the staging area of the
American talk show where the names of this season’s competitors were first
announced and sized up his competition. Most of the names and faces were
unfamiliar to him, the disadvantage of not being American or living here long
enough to be steeped in the culture. Two years spent playing rugby almost
constantly had not given him a lot of leisure time. The musician, Freddy, was
older and overweight. Olivier had heard tales of people losing twenty or thirty
pounds while on the show, but at least at first, Freddy would be at a
disadvantage. He dismissed Eugene out of hand. He might be clueless about
American culture, but he recognized a bigot when he saw one. Eugene was
entitled to his opinions, but Olivier was equally entitled to avoid him. He
suspected he’d take enough flak from Eugene for being French. If Eugene knew
the rest of his secrets, he’d never hear the end of it. Troy was a competitor
but not an athlete. He spent all of his time in his car. His mental toughness
couldn’t be discounted, but he didn’t have the body of an athlete. The two
other male stars, though, would bear watching. Kevan was a singer, not an
athlete, but even looking at him in a conservative shirt and pants, Olivier
could see the muscle beneath. The man worked out and kept himself in shape. And
then there was JC. An Olympic swimmer with four medals to his name. If anyone
in the competition had the physical stamina to compete with Olivier, it would
be JC.

JC Webster was about to lean in and say something to Chelsea
to break the ice when he saw the rugby player watching him and decided to go
say hello. He touched Chelsea lightly on the arm, not wanting to leave her
behind, and crossed the stage, taking the long way to get to Olivier so he
could avoid walking too close to Eugene. He’d almost missed both Amber and
Olivier being introduced, he’d been so busy glaring daggers at Eugene’s back,
and he didn’t intend to spend even a second more than he absolutely had to in
the man’s presence. Olivier, on the other hand, looked exactly like the kind of
person he’d like to know better, and he put on his brightest smile—the one he
used at PR events—as he sauntered up, Chelsea right behind him. “Hey. I’m JC.”

“’Ello,” Olivier said. “Olivier Gautier.” He offered his hand.
“I watched you swim last year. You are fast.” He winced at the inanity of his
comment, but he hated small talk, and living in the US for two years hadn’t
made doing it in English any easier.

JC laughed, ducking his head at the compliment even as he
took Olivier’s offered hand. He knew he was fast—he wouldn’t have made the US
Olympic Team if he wasn’t—but it never stopped embarrassing him to have it so
casually mentioned. “Thanks. I’ve never seen you play. Sorry.” He hated that he
had to say that, especially since he’d seen all the other contestants in something, but the little time he spent
sitting around watching sports was dedicated to American football with his
father or cheering the Olympic teammates he’d befriended during the 2012 London
Games.

“Rugby is not a well-known sport here,” Olivier said with a
shrug. “I knew that when I came to play, but it has been worth it. I don’t know
these people, even by name. Only what the host says in the introduction. Who
will be competition for us?”

“Deborah, probably. She used to be a gymnast and figure
skater, so she’s got some talent in the right area. It looks like she’s stayed
in shape too. Other than her….” JC shrugged, mentally sizing up the rest of the
stars. “Rini, maybe, or Kevan. They’re not athletes, but they’re in shape, and
they’re young enough that the hours won’t be too hard on them.”

“I’d guess either Amber or Makayla too,” Chelsea said,
nodding a greeting at Tricia and Olivier. “They’re young and in shape.”

“And a little more interested in how they look than how they
dance.” JC knew what his mother and grandmother thought of both women and
shared their views.

Chelsea grinned, looking around the stage at the other stars
and their partners. “You might be surprised.”

“And Tyler and Joel are fierce competitors,” Tricia,
Olivier’s partner, added. “They aren’t afraid to push the boundaries. Not that
any of us got here by being lazy or conservative in our dancing, but those two
are always the ones to beat, even with partners you wouldn’t expect to do
well.”

“And my partner?” Olivier asked with a flirtatious smile. He
might prefer to sleep with men, but that didn’t keep him from appreciating a
beautiful woman when he saw one. “Is she one to beat as well?”

“With a man like you to lead me around the floor? Hell,
yeah.”

JC laughed at the flirting and let his
gaze roam over both Olivier and Tricia, hoping Eugene wasn’t watching. He
wasn’t ashamed of being bisexual, but he really didn’t want to deal with
comments from Eugene tonight. That would be two strikes against him. “I don’t
know,” he said, winking at Tricia and slinging his arm around Chelsea’s
shoulders. “I think Chelsea got the better end of the deal.” Chelsea
laughed and patted his chest. “Of course I did. But I wouldn’t mind trading for
Olivier, if you get bored with him, Tricia.”

Olivier would trade with Chelsea too, especially since he
knew JC was bisexual. That didn’t mean he was automatically interested in
Olivier, but it meant he might be open to persuasion. He’d wait until he knew
his partner a little better before saying that where she could hear him,
though. They had to work as a team, and if she distanced herself from him
because he was gay, they would start the season with a handicap.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and end up on one of the team dances
together,” Tricia said. “If we get that far, of course.”

Olivier looked around the room at the other celebrities
again. “We will get that far.”

“Absolutely.” JC flashed a grin, glad he’d found a kindred
competitive spirit in Olivier. “Even if we’re all right and everyone we
mentioned is competition, that’s still seven, including us. Isn’t that when
they start the team dances?”

“Usually. But they like to mix it up sometimes too.” Chelsea
glanced over to where Elizabeth, the Dance
Off host, was talking to Christine. “Elizabeth might know, but sometimes
the producers don’t even tell her until a few weeks ahead of time.”

“It is not worth asking now,” Olivier said. “We have other
dances to learn first. Do we have our first assignment?”

“We have a cha-cha,” Tricia said. “What did you get,
Chelsea?”

“Fox-trot.” Chelsea rubbed her hand over JC’s chest. “I get
to have this one all dressed up in a nice suit.”

JC laughed. “I’m not sure I clean up all that well.” Mostly
he felt like a little kid wearing his grandfather’s clothes when he wore a
suit, his long limbs always making it hard to find shirts and jackets that fit
both in the arms and the torso, and he’d yet to wear one that didn’t feel
awkward from the moment he put it on. “I guess we’ll see, though. Do we get to
watch the other dancers this year?” He was looking forward to seeing Olivier
and Tricia in the revealing outfits that usually accompanied the Latin dances.

“I’m sure you do,” Tricia said, saving Olivier from trying to
find a way to say the same thing. “In the meantime, I get to take off Olivier’s
shirt.” She ran her fingers down the line of buttons holding Olivier’s dress
shirt closed.

“Open, maybe,” Olivier said. “Not off.” He had recovered
physically from the car accident that had benched him for a season, but he
still bore the scars on his back and left shoulder. He had no plans to go on
national TV without them covered.

“Start with open,” JC suggested, his eyes twinkling. “Then if
you make it far enough in the season, you can take it off. You don’t want to
give the viewers everything the first week.” He’d regret saying that if the
first week was Olivier’s only week and he never got the opportunity to see
Olivier shirtless, but he’d take open for now.

“You can use it to convince them to vote for you,” Chelsea
said with a grin. “Just so long as you don’t take our votes.”

Olivier laughed as he knew they expected him to, but he also
knew where his comfort level lay. “We will see, but you will have votes to
spare. Everyone knows JC Webster after the Olympics. Me, I’m just an unknown
rugby player from France. The judges will have to save me, not the voters.”

“Oh, I think you’ll get plenty of votes on your own,
especially if you show your chest.” JC laughed, letting his gaze roam over Olivier
again. “Look at the competition.” Troy wasn’t bad-looking—a little scruffy and
rugged, perhaps, but not ugly. Kevan and Freddy had a certain appeal in their
own way, Kevan with his very boyish looks and Freddy with the kind of face that
made people want to like him, but their appeal was limited. Eugene might appeal
to the older crowd, though JC thought his personality nullified his classic
looks, but none of them could match Olivier for sheer mass appeal. Even JC,
with his classic Hispanic looks, couldn’t quite match him, though he wasn’t
being arrogant when he thought that he was probably second in line as far as
mass appeal went.

Olivier studied the men. “Perhaps, but the men will all vote
for Amber or Makayla, and many women may as well because they wish to be like
them.”

“That’s probably true,” Tricia agreed, “but there’s nothing
like the appeal of a good-looking man, and most of ourviewers are female. We’ll look at what our options are and
what you’re comfortable with, but don’t discount plain old sex appeal when it
comes to winning votes.”

“Just don’t count on it to replace dancing, either,” Chelsea
added. “It might get you through a week or two if your dancing isn’t what it
should be, but eventually people will vote for the person who can dance over
the eye candy.” She glanced up at JC. “That goes for you too.”

JC held up his hands and took a step back. “I’m planning to
work hard!” The idea of doing anything less would never occur to him. He was
here because it was good publicity now that the Olympics were more than a year
in the past and because his mama loved the show and had been thrilled at the
idea, but he wasn’t the kind of person who did anything halfway. He’d
committed, and he was going to do everything he could to win. Besides, the Trevor
Project needed all the funding it could get, and it was something he really did
believe in. If he could get that top prize, it would help so many kids.

And probably piss Eugene and his cronies off a lot too.

That was just a bonus, though, not the goal. As his gaze
drifted over to Eugene, drawn by the thought, he noticed Carmen, Eugene’s
partner, standing off to the side, and he rolled his eyes. “I’ll work with you too,” he added, glaring at
Eugene for a moment before turning back to his partner. “I can’t promise I’ll
get all the dances, but I’ll do my best to learn.”

That was the attitude that had made JC a champion. Olivier
turned to Tricia and asked, “How soon do they let us start?”

“Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock,” Tricia said. “We can
hang out and talk all we want tonight when we get to the house you’ll all be
staying in, but we can’t start actually training until tomorrow morning. Now,
if you decided you wanted to go study videos of previous seasons’ cha-chas,
that wouldn’t technically be considered training.”

Olivier laughed. “But perhaps it would still be considered
starting too soon. We will start in the morning like everyone else. I am not
afraid of long hours of rehearsal. It cannot be harder than long hours of
running drills on the rugby pitch.”

“Or long hours in the pool,” JC added with a grin. It would
use different muscles, he knew, and he was sure he’d be sore by the end of the
day, but the hours wouldn’t be a problem. “If we can’t start until eight, it’ll
feel like I get to sleep in.”

“Tomorrow is the only day with a start time,” Tricia
explained. “After tomorrow, you can start as early and work as long as you and
your partner can stand each other, but remember that you have fourteen weeks of
rehearsal if you make it to the finals. You don’t want to wear yourself out too
soon.”

“Part of being an athlete is knowing how to pace yourself so
you peak at the right time,” Olivier said. “JC knows this too.”

“Exactly. I know my body, and I’m sure Olivier does too. Just
like you do,” he added, squeezing Chelsea’s shoulder.

“Hey, now!” Joel came up on Chelsea’s other side and slipped
an arm around her waist. “Are you hitting on my girl?”

“Your girl?” JC raised an eyebrow and took a step back,
pulling his arm free of Chelsea’s shoulder.

“Just because she’s your dance partner doesn’t mean she has
to give up the rest of her life,” Joel said.

“Joel,” Chelsea scolded. “Quit acting like a jealous
boyfriend. We’ve been over this. We hug and kiss and flirt with our partners
for the cameras and go home to each other when it’s over.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t give him a hard time.” Joel stepped
free of Chelsea and held his hand out to JC, then Olivier. “It’s nice to meet
you both. Just ignore me. I say all sorts of stuff I don’t mean. I have to
psych you two out so Makayla can win.” He pulled his partner close, slipping
his arm around her waist.

Makayla giggled as she wrapped her arm around Joel, leaning
in possessively. Chelsea might get to go home with Joel for now, but it looked
like Makayla was going to take advantage of every minute she got to be the one
wrapped around him. “That’s right. We’re going to kick your asses. Joel here is
the best.”

“It is hard to argue with a record like his,” Olivier agreed
before turning to Tricia. “And should I be worried about a jealous lover
appearing to steal you away as well?”

“Only a feline one,” Tricia said with a laugh. “She gets
pissy if I don’t come home and feed her in the evenings, but she’s the only
demand on my time.”

Olivier grinned at her before turning to the other two
couples. “And this is why we will win this season. No distractions.”

JC gave Olivier a once-over and curled his lips into a smirk.
“Oh, I don’t know. I bet we could come up with one for you.”

Chelsea smacked him lightly on the arm. “Focus! Joel and I
are pros at this. Our relationship won’t interfere with us winning.”

“You mean us
winning,” Joel corrected.

Olivier left them to their bickering, far more intrigued by
JC’s unabashed perusal. Some of the swimmer’s other comments and glances could
have been open to interpretation, but there was no missing the frank appraisal
in that one. Perhaps this method of filling the off-season would be less
tedious than he had imagined.

He smiled slowly, leaving it up to JC to decide how to
interpret his reaction. “We will see who the winner is,” he agreed. In more ways than one.

About the Authors

Ariel Tachna lives outside of Houston with her husband, her daughter and son, and their two dogs. Before moving there, she traveled all over the world, having fallen in love with France, where she met her husband, and India, where she hopes to retire some day. She’s bilingual with snippets of four other languages to her credit and is as in love with languages as she is with writing.

You can find Ariel at

Nessa L. Warin lives in a fantasy world that’s mostly inside her head, though her physical address is in southwestern Ohio. Her two cats kindly play along with her fantasies and graciously let her pay all the bills, but they do require her to provide pampering on a regular basis. Nessa enjoys exploring the wonders of this world through travel—something her cats strongly disapprove of as it cuts into their pampering time—and can find whimsy in the most mundane places. When the real world becomes too much, Nessa enjoys dressing in costume and going to Renaissance Festivals and fantasy conventions. A short trip to either does wonders for her state of mind, so she makes sure to attend at least one of each a year. These trips help Nessa add to her collection of faerie and dragon art, and she swears she will frame and hang all the prints she’s collected some time soon.

When she’s not living in a fantasy world, Nessa enjoys tasting and learning about wine, particularly since it’s one of the few things she and the rest of her family agree on. She’s a regular at the wine tastings held by her local wine shop, and considers it a sin for her wine rack to have more empty spots than full ones. She’d prefer her wine rack to be filled with Pinot Noir, Malbec, and Syrah, but one of her favorite things about wine is the way it can always surprise her. More than once she’s been taken aback by which wine she likes best at a tasting, and she loves the way her wine rack illustrates the joys of trying new things.

Gabe Martin has a simple life plan: get into the NHL and win the Stanley Cup. It doesn’t include being the first out hockey player or, worse, getting involved with one of his teammates. But things change.

Dante Baltierra is Gabe’s polar opposite—careless, reckless… shameless. But his dedication to the sport is impressive, and Gabe can overlook a lot of young-and-stupid in the name of great hockey. And Dante has a superlative ass in a sport filled with superlative asses.

Before Gabe can figure out how to deal, a tabloid throws him out of his comfortable closet into a brand-new world. Amid the emotional turmoil of invasive questions, nasty speculation, and on- and off-ice homophobia, his game suffers.

Surprisingly, it’s Dante who drags him out of it—and then drags him into something else. Nothing good can come of secretly sleeping with a teammate, especially one Gabe has feelings for. But with their captain out with an injury, a rookie in perpetual need of a hug, and the race to make the playoffs for the first time since 1995, Gabe has a lot on his plate.

He can’t be blamed for forgetting that nothing stays secret forever.

Available for purchase at

Excerpt

Since the
whole impending disaster was his idea, Baller insisted on paying for their
tickets. Gabe let him, too overwhelmed by sunshine and happy families to do
otherwise. Baller forked over the money, ushered Gabe through the stiles,
grabbed a couple of maps, and then basically frog-marched Gabe onto the
railroad.

Baller
grinned manically and threw his arm over Gabe’s shoulders. “Disneyland, Gabe,” he said, as if that
explained his completely bizarre behavior. Maybe it did, in his world. “We are
going to have fun today if it kills us.”

Gabe
thought it actually might.

They got
off at the first stop, according to Baller’s extremely detailed plan of attack,
and Baller just stood there for a moment, beaming, like he couldn’t imagine
anywhere he’d rather be than Anaheim, California, in the middle of a losing
streak. Gabe gave in to his own sentimentality and snapped a picture with his
phone.

“Pirates,”
Baller sighed happily, grabbing Gabe’s arm and herding him to the right. “Come
on. Maybe they have some poor sucker dressed up as Will for you to ogle.”

Gabe was
reasonably sure the people dressed in costumes were for the kids to interact with, but he decided to
keep it to himself. Even if today did nothing more than deepen Gabe’s pit of
ill-advised feelings for his teammate, Baller still deserved to have a good
time.

As it
turned out, Gabe did not have to worry about Baller having a good time. The
line for the ride was surprisingly short, and Baller spent the whole ten
minutes bouncing on his toes, peering around at the scenery and humming “A
Pirate’s Life for Me” under his breath like a loser.

“Some days
I forget you’re only twenty,” Gabe said with a self-deprecating smile as they
reached the front of the line and took their seats on the ride. “Today’s not
one of them.”

“Stop
being so old for five minutes and relax. I’m trying to cheer us up.”

Gabe
raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. You’re in charge. I’m just along
for the ride. Rides.”

Once he
admitted to Baller (and himself) that he was not in charge of the situation, it
made for a pleasant afternoon. At the end of the ride, they emerged into the
sunshine again and Baller made a beeline for a cart selling elaborate hats to
match the theme. He tossed a tricorne at Gabe, then grabbed something in mauve
with an ostrich feather plume and shoved it on his own head. “What do you
think?” he asked, running a finger along the brim, his eyes dancing.

Gabe
wanted to kiss him, but he distracted himself by trying on his own silly hat.
“Well, you’re no Will Turner, but I suppose you’ll do.”

Baller
stuck out his tongue and forked over a handful of bills for the hat.

Baller
bought them Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream for lunch, and they ate standing in
the shade of a big tree by the Haunted Mansion.

“We going
on this one too?” Gabe asked.

“Everyone
knows you have to work up to Splash Mountain,” Baller said loftily. He threw
his stick away and licked a drip of ice cream off his thumb.

It
probably wasn’t purposely pornographic. Probably.

After the
Indiana Jones Adventure, Baller tried to buy Gabe a fedora that looked even
worse on him than the tricorne.

“Only
douche bags wear fedoras.”

Baller
smirked and took a picture with his phone. “So, no problem, then.”

Gabe made
a face.

“Come on,
you said I was in charge,” Baller wheedled.

“I didn’t
think that meant I was going to have to cede control of my wardrobe.”

Baller
rolled his eyes. “Grouch.” He tossed a headband with Mickey Mouse ears at Gabe
instead.

“Compromise?”

At least
Baller hadn’t invited anyone else along to witness Gabe’s humiliation. He would
definitely never hear the end of it if any of these pictures got out. Fifi
would chirp him forever, and there’d probably be a whole media circus if they
got caught goofing off when they couldn’t win a hockey game for love nor money.

Gabe
sighed internally and put on the headband.

Three and
a half hours later, when they stumbled out of Buzz Lightyear AstroBlasters for
the fourth time, he was smirking. “Another rematch?”

“Screw you,
no, you smug bastard.” Baller pouted, but he couldn’t hold it. His grin won out
a second later. “Seriously, are you hiding a secret video game addiction?”

“Admit it,
I just have better hand-eye coordination than you,” Gabe said, adjusting his
ears as he preened. They were starting to hurt his head, but the deal was
Baller had to wear the stupid hat as long as Gabe kept the ears on. Gabe wasn’t
going to be the first to give in.

“That’s
not what the statistics say, buddy.” Baller had pulled ahead in their points
race since that game against the Sabres. “In fact, I—” He stopped midsentence
and cocked his head at Gabe, an odd smile twisting his lips. He took a step
closer and raised a hand to the headband. “Duck your head a little? You’ve got
something on your…”

Gabe froze
when Baller grabbed his right wrist for balance as he reached up. His hat
tipped back precariously, but Gabe couldn’t have made a grab for it if his life
depended on it. He was stuck, not breathing, while Baller shuffled closer until
Gabe could see his pores. He brushed his fingers over Gabe’s mouse ears.

“I think
you walked into a cobweb. You’ve got a leaf…. There.” Baller pulled his right
hand away but left the other where it was, clasped around Gabe’s wrist. There
was a papery sound as whatever he’d pulled from Gabe’s head hit the asphalt.

Their eyes
caught.

For one
eternally stupid second, Gabe thought Baller was going to kiss him.

Then the
moment passed, and Baller let go and took a step back. He slapped Gabe on the arm.
“Much better. Good thing you have me to look after you.”

Gabe
forced himself to unfreeze and shake his head in mock disbelief. “Right,” he
said as they started walking again, toward Space Mountain this time. “I’m such
a handful.”

Baller
snorted. “Too easy. You know better than to feed me a line like that. Come on.”

Baller
tripped over nothing on the pavement. Gabe grabbed him by the back of his shirt
before he could take a dive. Crap. He’d gone too far.

Huffing at
himself, Baller righted his hat, then poked Gabe with his elbow. “You know, I
was starting to be afraid you were never going to make that kind of chirp
again. Good to have you back.”

Sometimes I don’t understand you at all. But for
once Gabe let himself be honest. “It’s good to be back.” Then he saw the line for Space Mountain and winced. “Good
thing we have Fast Passes.” They only had an hour left before they had to leave
the park to be back in time for team dinner.

Gabe had
forgotten all about their stupid headgear by the time they returned to the
hotel. When they walked into the lobby, Fifi looked over from the concierge
desk, a gym towel slung over one of his shoulders, and barked out a laugh. “I
guess I don’t have to ask what you got up to today.”

“We went
to Disneyland!” Baller said unnecessarily. The feather on his hat flopped from
one side to the other in time with his enthusiasm.

“No shit.”
Fifi rolled his eyes and reached up to flick Gabe’s ears.

Gabe took
them off.

“You’d
better have plenty of energy left for the game tomorrow.”

Gabe
bristled. “What? I got him home in time for curfew.”

Affecting
wide-eyed, earnest innocence, Baller nodded. “Yeah, Dad. He was a total
gentleman. Didn’t even try to steal second.”

Fifi
smacked the brim of Baller’s hat down over his eyes. “Fine, fine. Hurry up and
get ready for dinner or we’re eating without you.”

Somehow
Chef snuck into his room and stole the ears while Gabe was showering, and he
showed up to dinner wearing them, so of course he and Baller got ragged on.
Gabe hoped Chef didn’t put it up on Twitter, but at least Gabe wouldn’t be
featured wearing the ears in any pictures. The teasing only got worse when they
begged off going out for a drink because they were both too tired to do more
than flop on Gabe’s bed and finish watching Pirates.

“Hey,
Banksy?”

“Hmm,”
Gabe said. His eyes wouldn’t quite focus on the laptop screen.

“Just…
thanks.”

Blinking
gritty eyes, Gabe managed, “For what?”

He heard
Baller answer, but the words got lost on his tired ears as he finally fell
asleep.

About the Authors

Morgan James started writing fiction before she could spell it. It was in high school that she started writing her first novel about a gay character, and she thanks the Internet for helping her realize that didn't make her crazy. Coincidentally, she also thanks the Internet for the role it plays in her long distance friendship with Ashlyn Kane. Geek, artist, archer, and fangirl, Morgan tends to while away free hours with imaginary worlds and people on pages and screens—it's an addiction. She lives in Ontario with her family and is the personal slave of three cats and a poodle (who isn't named Ringo, but who does like to poke).

You can find Morgan at

Ashlyn Kane is a Canadian former expat who is now happy to be reunited with televised hockey at acceptable waking hours. She has reached the age of “twentysomething,” which she will be for at least the next fifteen years.

She has a bad habit of staying up too late, a husband who likes to go to bed early, and a baby brother called Miracle Whip. She is allergic to cleaning, unless you mean cleaning up manuscripts, in which case she gets a little obsessive. Feel free to drop her a line—she’s probably in front of her computer right now, since she’s attached to it at the eyeballs.